June 3, 2018

From Dad - A week of work

Dear Sam,

How's my boy? I have to say how much I love the enthusiasm coming from your emails. I'm sure things aren't all roses, but you have an amazing ability to see the good in life and recognize the value of experiencing things, good and bad, to grow. I hope you never lose that.

This week has been busy. We've been prepping the lawn (I was reminded again why I quit landscaping!) and I was grateful some of those skills haven't gone away. I managed to rig up a homemade rake to pull behind the lawn tractor using a pallet, rope and stones and it worked really well until the little tractor quit on me :( We are looking forward to some grass starting to grow. Everyone has been pitching in to help. We were able to put in some garden this year. We've moved the garden over by the dugout with hopes of rigging up a pump and being able to water from the pond.

Yesterday was busy. Liz, Grandma Smith and Rachel came up to play in piano festival provincials. Rachel is in the same group as Abby and so they were able to all go together. They both played well and enjoyed the experience. Ben had a “Bro” party this week-end with Ben DeVries and Cody coming over for some long overdue D&D. Of course I had to put them to work for part of the time! 

I was able to finally get the garage door ordered and delivered and spent all day installing it. Got most of the way there and was reminded of the power of small and simple steps to accomplishing large, often intimidating tasks. With the help of instructions, YouTube and a few calls to Bro. Damon Henault (he sold me the door), I was able to work through most sticking points. Ben was there to help me with the heavy lifting and it worked out pretty good!

Wednesday I went with Ben and Abby to the youth temple baptisms. It was an amazing experience watching the Aaronic Priesthood young men take turns baptizing. They weren’t perfect, but that made it all the more real and powerful for me to see them honor their priesthood and server in the Temple of God. Daryl went for the first time to do baptisms and also got to baptize!

Mom mentioned it last week, but Ben and I went and got new suites. He looks like a missionary in his new suit and commented on how good it feels to be dressed up.

Bishop Lambert bore his testimony today and told of an experience where he came across an old desk he had had since his youth. Scratched in the drawer were words he’d tried unsuccessfully to scratch out. It was something like “I hate math. If I fail Math, I’m quitting school!”.  He laughed about it, but admitted that at the time, that’s how he really felt and he then bore testimony of the power of the Savior’s atonement that let’s us carry on when we want to quit and how his grace can pick us up when we struggle and fall. I have felt his strength and help in my life when I’ve felt low and struggling. Bringing the message of the comforting and saving power of the Savior to the Zambians will bless them and you as well.

Life is full of wonderful challenges. I’m grateful for our family and the support it provides us as we journey through the experiences of this life.  Know that we love you and that we are praying daily for you.

Love Dad

From Sam - One More Thing

One more thing. This is something that we learned at Zone Conference.

The big new thing we talked about was the contrast between the pride cycle and the gratitude cycle. First, we're all familiar with the Pride Cycle. The people are righteous, the Lord prospers them, they become prideful and forget from where their blessings come, then they fall away and are punished, and either they are destroyed or they are compelled to be righteous again. On the flip side is the Gratitude Cycle, where people have an attitude of gratitude. First they are full of gratitude, then they recognize their blessings, they humble themselves before the Lord because they acknowledge their blessings come from Him, they Sacrifice, then live consecrated lives of integrity, and then they are fully converted, where we return to the beginning of the cycle: they are full of gratitude.

We talked about each point in detail.

1. Full of Gratitude

• Grateful to be a missionary.
• Love the work.
• Grateful for everything.

2. Recognize Blessings

• Like above, grateful for everything. acknowledging how blessed we are, and taking note of the individual small things.
• Food, shelter, leaders, medical care (thanks Elder Johnson).
• Missionary companion.
• The Gospel.
• Gifts and talents that assist in the Lord's work.

Honestly I don't know why this had its own category and wasn't joined with the first (Full of Gratitude) but maybe it was used to distinguish our attitude from the act of actually acknowledging our blessings.

3. Humility

• Rely on the Lord, not yourself. Acknowledge imperfections. See Ether 12:26
• No false ideas of entitlement (i.e. some missionaries unfortunately feel they deserve something for their service and don't view it as a privilege like they should. They think the church owes them something and don't realize that the blessings of serving a mission vastly outweigh any sacrifice they ever make). See Mosiah 2:23-24
• Willing to accept corrections and submit to the Lord and His appointed servants.
• Remembering to glorify God and give Him the credit for our success, all of which is rightfully His.

4. Sacrifice

• Significant and meaningful service (not slothful)
• Leaving family and friends behind for a season for the work of God. Leaving behind all personal affairs, such as jobs, education, hobbies and interests, boyfriends/girlfriends (yes they talked about that LOL) etc.
• Our time and effort, not for any kind of payment or money (one could say the Lord pays us with blessings).

5. Consecration and Integrity

This one also ties into the previous, but while they are related there are some distinctions.

• Opportunity to serve the Lord.
• "eye single to the glory of God" -D&C 4:5 and 82:19
• Honesty and integrity - MSF is the sacred funds we receive for food and transport and similar expenses, which come from us and the tithing of others. How sad it is when dishonest missionaries violate the promises they made when they came on mission by using MSF to buy personal items and souvenirs, and in some cases, even save it for use at home or send it to their families! This is most prevalent with the missionaries who are approved to receive financial assistance to serve or get help from other members members at their home because their families were too poor, and then turn around and selfishly take the "widow's mite" for themselves.
• Forget yourself in the Lord's service.
• Obedience to mission rules (again relating to both honesty and integrity).
• Consecrating your WHOLE SOUL as an offering to the Lord. See Omni 1:26

6. Powerful Conversion

• "Mighty change of heart." -Mosiah 5:2
• Serving out of LOVE, not just out of obligation or duty.
• "Full of FIRE and TESTIMONY!"
• Worthy of the Spirit, powerful teacher/missionary.
• Willing and happy to serve with a cheerful heart.

These are the things I took away from zone conference. Sure they are tailored for a missionary, but they apply to everyone, because we are all supposed to be missionaries.

-Elder Smith

From Sam - Baptism and Confirmation

This week has been a blast. We had zone conference and learned a lot about missionary work and the area doctor did a presentation about everything that could go wrong on a mission medical wise if we were disobedient. I can tell you now that I want to be more obedient then I already was just in case. He also talked about how when he was a seminary teacher he gave the report to the bishop talking about how the students were good kids but he wouldn't recommend them for the clinic. The bishop asked why and he said that they were good, but they weren't great. This could be applied to everyone anywhere. For me I don't want to be a good missionary, I want to be a great missionary. I want to be a missionary God would be proud of. You can apply this in your own life. Whatever you are, don't be good, be great. Be someone God would be proud of.

One funny story. As me and my companion were walking a trail to get to the main road we passed three kids. As we passed I said "Muli Che" meaning "are you guys fine"(That's a rough translation) Two of the kids just said yes, but the last kid said really enthusiastically "Ndilli che, ndilli che myguy, ndilli che!" Meaning "yes i'm fine". The kids here just make me laugh all the time. Sometimes when the little kids see us "Zungu's" they start chanting "Azungu bele bele, Azungu bele bele". I'm still trying to figure out what that means. They're just excited to see white people. An even as we walk through my area the same kids always walk up and hold out their fists asking for a fist bump, some kids even say "Diago" when our fists meet. It's so great.

I love you all, If there is anything specific you want to know, let me know. Because I don't know what you want to know.

-Elder Smith

Pictures:

-Canadian picture

-Baptism for Alex

-Nshima meal with a member

-More Canada

-My Zone

-Prepping for Zone Conference

Videos:

-Playing with Kids

-Free food

From Dad 

Tell us more about the baptism!

From Sam 

Sure thing. Alex was someone I started teaching when I first got here. He then moved away for work so we couldn't contact him. But when he returned we were sort of relaxed about teaching him. We then decided to baptize him in two weeks because he was constantly coming to church. If we saw him everyday we could do it. The crappy part was we couldn't see him everyday, we saw him two or three times. But miraculously we crammed in three lessons in one and he understood well and he was baptized. I had to do the baptism three times because the water wasn't high enough, but it worked out. It was a good baptism.